What drew you to photography? Is it a specific genre? Is that a person? Either way, I wanted to cover the benefits of being as open-minded and experimental as possible when you’re new to the profession.
It feels like every photographer has their own path to their first camera and burning passion that is photography. I’ve always had a vague fondness for photography, and I used to own disposable cameras in the family until bulky digital point-and-shoots took up a drawer in every house. home, then I used them. However, no one ever urged me to try photography properly, and I never sought knowledge or training.
Then — and this is my third time writing this on Fstoppers, so I’ll leave it out for the most part — I found a subsection of the car forum I join daily dedicated to photography. It’s filled with incredible photographers, from automotive (obviously) to internationally awarded landscape photographers. Quite unexpectedly, what caught my attention was a topic about macro photography. There are two different photographers with Canon’s TS-E macro lenses paired with Canon MT-26EX-RT Macro Twin Liteswhich, if you’re not familiar with macros, was (and is) a Rolls Royce to annoy insects.
My obsession grew, and I finally found the cheapest route to macro photography I could: a (lots of) used Canon 350D, original 18-55mm kit lens head comes with it and a macro filter from eBay. I only have one image left over from that setup, and apart from the image quality, I still prefer it:
My original hobby as a photographer was simply taking pictures of insects. However, when you find yourself with some new (for you) technology, it’s hard not to be curious. Before long, I was taking gruesome portraits of my girlfriends, horribly exposed landscapes, and even product photos of the watches I own. I wanted to try anything and everything, from genre to technique, and I did. In fact, I can honestly say that there aren’t many things that I didn’t try my hand at in the first few years. Some of them, such as portraits and watch product shots, became so important to me that they would eventually take me away from my intended life in academia and into is photography as a profession. If I hadn’t experimented, I’d have missed out on a lot, but more than that, I’d have gotten worse as a photographer, too. So here are five valuable ways experimenting as a new photographer.
Discover your passion
I believe my passion is to take such exotic, insect macro photos. That’s what got me through the door, and I still love it more than a decade later. You could argue that I’m really just interested in macro photography, but there’s a passion for another genre that when I started photography I had no interest in it: portraiture.
I went from not being interested in portraiture, to starting a website dedicated to it (which eventually led me to writing for Fstoppers) and running a Pinterest board about it, peaking at 100,000 views per month. Since then, portrait photography has been a central part of my photography as a passion and as a business. If I hadn’t tried other genres, I’d have missed out on finding a piece of craft that I truly love.
Transfer skills
One hugely underrated benefit of trying out different genres as a beginner is the degree of overlap in skill sets between genres. That is, macro photography can teach you a lot about the flickering light that can be transferred to portrait photography, for example. Or, photographing motorsports can teach you a lot about the shutter speeds and settings you’ll use to photograph wildlife. Or, painting with light can teach you a lot about long exposures in astrophotography, etc.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a genre that won’t overlap with any other, and so while learning one genre, you can improve on others.
Expand your perspective
There are more conceptual benefits to experimenting with genres as a new photographer: broadening your perspective. What I mean is that as you learn different genres, some background starts to influence the way you see other genres. For example, if you were initially interested in landscape photography, perhaps your wildlife photography eye will be informed by your previous experience and interest in the field. Where some wildlife photographers may be able to use the 600mm cannon to capture a moose completely isolated from the background, then you choose to incorporate it into your surroundings. There are times when some knowledge from one area can be applied to another for interesting results.
Flexibility
This section is really a melting pot of the previous two, as switchable skills and expansive perspectives give a photographer a lot more flexibility. Now this can be done in two ways: either you can do high quality photography of various genres and perhaps secure work for wildly different tasks. Or – and this is how I believe it’s most valuable – you can dive into your own genre and work in ways others wouldn’t have thought of. Especially in professional photography, you often find yourself in difficult and unexpected situations, and you need to be able to think for yourself to solve it. I attribute much of my flexibility to my curiosity as a photographer.
Conclusion
If you’re lucky enough to find joy in photography, take the time to explore its depths. As a hobbyist, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on a variety of genres I’m not pursuing professionally just to enjoy it. Thankfully, in turn, I grew as a photographer in unexpected ways from doing so, and this was especially true when I was just starting out. From praying mantises to portraits, photojournalism to Polaroid, I explored this craft, rotated it on all sides and it was a valuable task.
For beginner photographers, how often do you leave your “main” genre? Have you seen the benefits of doing so? Share your experience in the comments below.
